The Pakistan Cricket Board has got lukewarm response to its plans of appointing specialist coaches with the national team as foreigners have not shown much interest in the positions advertised by it.
Published: Nov 20, 2011, 03:01 PM (IST)
Edited: Nov 20, 2011, 03:01 PM (IST)
The PCB has received only 15 applications from interested candidates for the positions of batting, fielding and bowling coaches that it advertised on its website earlier this month
Lahore: Nov 20, 2011
The Pakistan Cricket Board has got lukewarm response to its plans of appointing specialist coaches with the national team as foreigners have not shown much interest in the positions advertised by it.
According to details, the PCB has received only 15 applications from interested candidates for the positions of batting, fielding and bowling coaches that it advertised on its website earlier this month.
The PCB had set a deadline of November 18 for interested candidates to apply for the specialist positions but sources said only around 15 people had applied including just three foreigners mainly from the United Kingdom.
“The response for three specialist coaching positions has been pretty disappointing. Because we got around 37 applications when we advertised the post of head coach in September,” an official source said.
PCB Chairman Zaka Ashraf, soon after taking over from Ijaz Butt, announced that three specialist coaches would be appointed with the team for batting, bowling and fielding.
For the time being, former Test batsman Mohsin Khan is working as interim coach with the team and after the series with Sri Lanka in UAE he has also been retained for the coming tour to Bangladesh.
The position fell vacant after Waqar Younis decided to step down as head coach in September after the Zimbabwe tour due to personal and health reasons.
The PCB had appointed a committee headed by Intikhab Alam to scrutinise the applicants for the head coach position and than shortlist and recommend names to the board Chairman.
The names of Australian, Dean Jones, South African, Mickey Arthur and England’s Dermot Reeve were among those five candidates the PCB had shortlisted for the head coach position alongwith two locals. Later it was confirmed that Arthur turned down an offer.
Interestingly the Dawn newspaper reported on Sunday that former coach of the Sri Lankan and Bangladesh teams, Dav Whatmore was also in the run for the position of head coach along with Dean Jones.
And according to the report, Whatmore was among those who had applied for the position when the board had advertised the position in September although Whatmore himself has said in the media that he is happy with his current coaching position in India with the national academy.
“This new development about Whatmore applying is intriguing and it might have some substance because he was very much interested in coaching the Pakistan team in 2007 when the board instead choose Australian, Geoff Lawson,’ one insider in the board said. (PTI)
